Miraculous birth for baby elephant declared dead
A baby Asian elephant declared dead in its mother’s womb two days ago by zookeepers has been born alive after spending more than a week in labour.
The miraculous birth at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo has stunned zoologists and vets who had given up hope for the calf based on the fact that there were no known cases of baby elephants surviving such protacted births.
Zoo director Cameron Kerr said the calf’s survival would “completely re-write the elephant birth text books” but added that staff were focusing on making sure the new arrival survived the critical first 24 hours after birth.
The calf has already tried to suckle from its mother, Porntip, and has touched trunks with the zoo’s other female elephants and the zoo’s other calf, Luk Chai, which was born eight months ago Taronga’s senior veterinarian Larry Vogelnest said.
“The others are very excited and curious, reaching out to him with their trunks whenever he gets close,” Vogelnest said.
“Porntip is already showing signs of being an excellent mother, trying to help him suckle although he hasn’t quite managed to suckle yet. She’s in good health and has been getting to know her calf, gently touching the young animal with her trunk.”
The calf appeared to have survived the birth by going into a coma, he said: “That unconscious state would explain the complete absence of any vital signs during all the checks and examinations we conducted during the labour and led us to believe the calf had not survived.”
As reported on Zoogle News last year, Taronga Zoo is in the midst of a baby boom following the arrival of Luk Chai last year.
Pak Boon, another of the zoo’s females, is due to give birth in early 2011 — at around 22 months elephants have the longest gestation period of any land animal — after falling naturally pregnant to the herd’s male elephant, Gung.
Porntip was impregnated by artificial insemination as part of a breeding programme to raise the numbers of the endangered elephant in both the wild and captivity.